Balatro Creator Points Out The Hypocrisy Of Unexpected PEGI Rating

screenrant.com:

Shortly after celebrating the success of at The Game Awards 2024, the game's creator, LocalThunk, is calling out PEGI for switching the game's rating to 18+ earlier in the year — the highest age rating that PEGI can give, and by far the highest rating has received from any ratings board. A rating of 18+ classifies as a game that's available for adults only and restricts minors from legally purchasing the game in the UK, though there are obviously ways around those restrictions.

In a post from @LocalThunk on X, the creator of has called out PEGI for the hypocrisy of 's 18+ rating, saying "," specifically referring to 's 3+ PEGI rating. Notably,, despite being a full-price game, also includes a heavy focus on in-game microtransactions, encouraging players to spend additional money on a premium currency, FC Points, which can be used for in-game purchases, including random card packs.

The PEGI website justifies 's 18 rating by saying that the game's use of real poker hands teaches skills that "," conflating 's mechanics with gambling — even though the game has relatively little to do with real poker outside cosmetic elements, like using poker hands to score or winning chips as an equivalent to points. Next to PEGI ratings for games like (3+) or (12+), which heavily encourage spending real money on in-game gambling elements, 's 18+ comes off as hypocritical.

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Notably, LocalThunk has also clarified that the hypocrisy of other games' ratings is more of an issue than 's rating itself, saying in another post on X that "." It should be pointed out that, despite 's poker-themed gameplay, the game's cost has only ever been the one-time, upfront purchase of the game itself, with no microtransactions or premium currencies, and all of 's content can be unlocked by simply playing it.

Next to games with a heavy emphasis on monetization